Recently, sanctions were imposed on North Korea in response to its tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This article examines the dimensions of socio-economic impacts on the country as a result of increasing nuclear activities.

In July, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea in response to its tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since then, tensions have escalated further after Kim Jong’s regime fired another ballistic missile over Japan. These sanctions are imposed in the hope that Kim Jong Un’s regime might abandon its Nuclear weapon program.

The new restrictions on Pyongyang aim to reduce about a third of North Korea’s $3 billion export revenue. Significantly, China, North Korea’s biggest trading ally, has also backed the sanctions. The new measures significantly step up restrictions on North Korea’s international trade: Estimates say they may cost Pyongyang $1 billion a year, an enormous sum for a relatively poor country. The resolution bans North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. The measures would be the seventh set of UN sanctions imposed on North Korea since it first carried out a nuclear test in 2006.

A military conflict originating in North Korea, if materialises, might disrupt more than a third of global crude oil trade. Such a conflict might cripple North Asia’s production capacity and the effects of an open war would be far-reaching and everlasting. Pyongyang seems to expand its military capabilities with intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying a nuclear head. After a series of missile tests that put Japan, South Korea and the U.S. on a red alert, it serves to heighten the pressure on the global economy and trade.

So far, the sanctions have failed to have any significant impact on Pyongyang’s missile development plans. As China and Russia support this round, will Kim negotiate and agree to suspend his nuclear program? It’s hard to believe that, but what can be believed is that North Korea and its trade allies will suffer: in the short run and in the long run. Also, when we talk of the narratives which a country like North Korea has sent to the world they are primarily that of a communist regime, who on the outside shows that equality and justice gain paramount importance on the other side within the country exists a wide array of differences, both in terms of standards of living and economic development. This makes us delve, into the idea of how it started and why is one of the Koreas at a stage of Economic growth and not the other. This entirely rests upon two parameters:

1. Adoption of communist pattern which failed tremendously

2. Poor foreign relations because of a strict and non- accommodative regime.

Thus, in all probability, we come to a conclusion that all the resources of the Korean government are going into its nuclear ambition without requisite benefit to the people of North Korea, who ought to be the main stakeholders. However, the regime has a wide history of:

1. State led prosecutions;

2. Violation of human rights of citizens on grounds of going against the regime and Committing petty crimes.

All these reasons have led to a domestic dissatisfaction, among the people of North Korea, who now have succeeded in gaining international attention which in tandem is going to be reflective of their ideologies. By Prabhmaan Thapar and Anish